Summer of Strange

This has been the Summer of Strange.
1. Our Mayor responds to a citizen’s cries for help and gets hit repeatedly over the head by an assailant with a tire iron and his heroics bump alderman, Bob Donovan (ours) out of first place in the new, Channel 12’s A-list “ Best Fighting Elected Officials,” category. And makes the front page of the Huffington Post three days running.
2. My black lab that normally, on our regular walks on the Hank Aaron Trail, brings me old tennis balls, baseballs (errant home runs?), dead fish, brought me someone’s neatly folded, single stapled, bankruptcy papers that were filed in 1986.
3. I got kicked out of a trendy, Shorewood store by the spray-tanned owner because I was “just looking,” at his vast array of high end, over-the-top, eye glasses. He asked me if I had ever purchased anything from him, I responded, that I hadn’t. “Then why are you here?” He asked. I tried to appeal to his lofty ego and say because his store is the “benchmark of style.” He responds, “Well, if it’s the benchmark, then why don’t you buy from us?” Because, some things were too pricey, I say, but in my defense I left the door open with the rising tone in my voice, as if to say that I might purchase something from him, someday, maybe. Not good enough. He tells me he’s busy with an order, “From a PAYING CUSTOMER,” and gestures towards the front door. I guess, it’s nice to know that in this economy, some people can afford to piss off potential customers.
4. Speaking of pissing people off, I managed to piss off the service center guy where I take my car for it’s maintenance. He asked me what was wrong. I told him that my battery was dead, “ . . . just like Brett Favre is to me.” He asked if the 16 years with the Packers meant nothing to me. I told him that I felt like a jilted lover and had every right to be hurt. I then asked him when my car would be ready. “Tomorrow, maybe, if we get to it.”
5. Someone tags the Marquette Interchange and costs the taxpayers thousands of dollars to clean it off. That’s a lot of Goof-off.
6. The weather. What happened to summer? I know! This cooler weather is because last year I made my husband go out and replace our 15 year old air conditioners with more efficient models, that we’ve had to turn on maybe three times – talk about efficiency! – since he herniated himself putting them into the windows.
7. Total empty nest. This was the first summer that we’ve had no kids at home. My son decided to stay for the summer in Madison and my daughter has moved to San Francisco. We have promoted the dog to child and allow him to sit with us on the sofa. The real children are shocked and upset. Sibling rivalry?
8. I finally have gotten grass to grow on my lawn! I don’t know how it happened. A miracle? I must get a yard statue of Saint Phocas, Patron Saint of lawn care.
9. Speaking of miracles . . . my writing has caught the eye of a New York based magazine editor, and
10. Um . . . been working on another book all about that whole mother-son relationship and my son doesn’t care what I write, as long as I don’t mention any names. Really?

Extremely Slow Makeover: Neighborhood Edition

I love Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Love. It. I watch it every Sunday with my box of Kleenex at the ready for the reveal, when the family falls to the asphalt and praises Jesus.

Ty Pennington? Don’t get me started. He and his army of volunteers can and do a total tear down of a house, rebuild it, landscape it and change the lives of one lucky family forever in 40 minutes (real time, a week).

I’ve been involved in something similar, except on a larger scale – Extremely Slow Makeover Neighborhood Edition – with a smaller army of just as dedicated volunteers. But, I wonder, how does Ty and his ilk deal with permits? Codes? The neighbors who live in the house next door that looked okay, but after the new and improved abode rises up from the ashes, it makes the adjacent home look like a hell hole.

Does anyone complain? Balk? Does the city council have to meet in order for the process to get started? Are motions tabled? Hearings rescheduled and rescheduled? Are funds a problem? Does Ty ever have an issue with a surely Alderperson? A not-on-board banker? Maybe that’s why it’s taking 13 million minutes, give or take.

I am throwing down the gauntlet. Ty, if you are reading this: here’s the challenge. You. Your team. Come into my neck of the woods and give it the once over. Re-do the main drag (we’ve even got a plan . . . it was supposed to be done in 2007, then ’08, then the City promised in ’09 and with the Stimulus money we thought it was a done deal, but, no. For some reason, it wasn’t “shovel ready.” Hell, I’ve got a shovel. I’m ready.)
Or . . . you pick the street and landscape the heck out of it. Every yard. Every house. Both sides of the street.

Come on, Ty one on! I dare you.

Caution, low flying children

I’ve got this alley in the back of my house. It’s like a lot of other alleys in Milwaukee – the place for garbage and recycling carts, pick up basketball games, car washing. The one thing that is different about my alley from all the other alleys? A 45° hill that for as long as the oldest resident (the crabby guy on the corner) can remember, has been the perfect place for kids to coast, slide, sled, skate, skateboard, and bike down. It’s a combination luge, bobsled, freestyle skateboard ramp (depends on the season). The perfect place for a speeding, no holds barred cyclist to fly down, cross the street continue on down the next alley, until brakes are applied or one meets up with a pole or careens into the aforementioned garbage carts.

Good clean kid fun. Right? Uh, well, sort of. If everything goes well, no one gets hurt – amazingly, a rare occurrence, because the seasoned veterans have spotters – a kid who stands on the bottom of the hill, usually in the middle of the street, checks for any oncoming cars and then gives the rider, coaster, skateboarder, the “go,” and zzzoooooom!

Not so last Saturday.

Apparently, two kids, on one bike, came flying down the alley and out onto the street and were t-boned by the SUV, driven by the woman. She had no time to react. That was the bad news. The good news? The kids were okay. A broken leg, cuts, bruises.

I hate to use the “perfect storm” cliche, but my street, the alley, the parked cars, inattentive drivers who speed all add up to that sublime conflagration of a bad, bad accident just waiting to happen.

Maybe last week we got lucky. The next two kids? Might not be. How can a future tragedy be prevented? Helmets? Try full body armor. Speed bumps? Oh, boy, now we’re talkin’ serious air.

The evening of the accident, there were a few parents who I saw using it as a teachable moment, pointing out the mangled bike to their kids, “See what happens?” Maybe that worked. The alley has been pretty quite since then. No skid marks.

Of course, the City of Milwaukee was all over it and put up a small, not very visible, SLOW KIDS AT PLAY sign. Whew! I feel sooo much better.

I didn’t know that there was a Reliquary in my neighborhood!

There is a room, above the Saint Joseph Chapel, in the International HQ of the School Sisters of Saint Francis on Layton Boulevard, commonly called The Bone Room – a fact I found out when I toured their Chapel, last Sunday for their 135th Anniversary as an Order.

Maybe the word chapel isn’t the right way to describe it. To me, that conjures up something diminutive, toned-down, simple, basic. The Sister’s place of worship and contemplation? Is more like a mini-cathedral.

It’s Romanesque in style. Made from the finest materials their co-foundress, Mother Alfons, could get her hands on – and judging by the first-class Italian marble columns, mosaics, excruciatingly detailed, hand-carved Stations of the Cross, and stained glass windows – she must have had one hell (excuse me!) of a sales pitch.

I admit that I’m a sucker for all that Catholic goo-ga – Patron Saints, holy cards, statues, a thing that when you press it on a piece of french toast make Jesus’s face appear – the kitschier, the better. On the tour of the Chapel, led by an understudy guide because the original sister had fallen ill, my small, keenly interested group, learned all about the ins and outs, the whys the what fors – like how the mosaics were assembled in Europe and then shipped in one piece to the United States during World War I and how the Sisters prayed to Saint Joseph so that the ship carrying them wouldn’t be sunk. And, wouldn’t you know that good old Joseph came through, and not just on one occasion.

There were other stories of bill collectors coming to the convent for $1500 and having to wait patiently in the front parlor while the sisters prayed (Saint Joseph, again) in the chapel for a miracle because they didn’t have the cash to pay them . . . and who should arrive at their back door? A man with an envelope containing . . . you guessed it . . . $1500.

I wonder if Saint Joseph handles credit card balances?

Anyway . . . the culmination of the tour? The Bone Room. Yeah. Bone. Room. At first, Sister Tour Guide (sorry, I forgot her name) said that there were too many stairs to climb, and since we had a lot of older people in the group (she didn’t mean me, did she?) maybe we shouldn’t bother to go up and see it.

Hold up. You can’t just casually mention that there’s a room full of Saint’s relics – bones, teeth, hair, blood – and not take me up there. But, then again, who am I to argue with a nun?* Well, the 16 year old me wouldn’t have had the guts, but the over 50 year old me did. So I asked, very politely, feigning devotion, “Sister? Is there any way that we could see the Reliquary?” (I thought she’d be impressed by my using the correct terminology, and I was right.)

She led us up the back stairway. Up three flights, and opened a massive oak door. I kind of expected a catacomb-y experience – floor to ceiling stacks of femurs and skulls arranged in a nice pattern. Instead there were several glass cases with small medallions, some had the looks of gaudy brooches on elaborate stands, others were more subdued. The small piece of bone, hair, cloth, was pressed onto a tiny pillow of satin or velvet, with the Saint’s name on a small piece of paper.

I asked the Sister, why here? Why relics? And she said that as far as she knew, the Vatican “Just kept sending them to us.”

Go figure.

And then, the open house, where I learned all about the good works of the School Sisters of Saint Francis or the SSSFs for short, who are not to be confused with the Sisters of Saint Francis (OSFs) who taught me in high school, and are not to be confused with the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Third Order of Saint Francis, who were my grade school teachers and left me with a legacy of good penmanship, grammar, and major issues.

What impressed me the most about the SSSFs? Well, Mother Alfons, their foundress,
built (and re-built after a fire) their mother house, established several schools, served the sick and elderly, traveled back and forth to Europe, and she did all of this while being tucked, wrapped and bound into several layers of heavily starched cotton and black worsted wool.

I have to say this, I once portrayed a nun for a fundraiser. It was for my grade school’s 75th anniversary and I wore an exact replica of a pre-Vatican II habit. At the dinner, I dropped my napkin and couldn’t bend my neck to find it. I had to ask for help.

So, to Sister Alfons, and all the good Sisters who do so much work around the world, a tip of the wimple to you. The bone room? A tip of the finger.

Local woman blames self for rash of neighborhood foreclosures.

Was it something I said, or maybe didn’t say? Was my friendly waving misunderstood?
Did the toot of my car horn have a tone?

The house next door is empty. The one across the street? Vacant. The big Victorian
right across the alley from our garage? Yeah, nobody home. I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s something I did. Or didn’t do.

I always meant to invite the next door family over for a barbeque and the family across the street, but . . . well . . . I just never got around to it. They seemed so busy. Coming and going. Did the guy work two jobs? I think the woman did.

I suppose it would have helped if I had known their real names. That’s a problem with my neighborhood – very ethnically mixed. Hmong, Thai, Vietnamese, Hispanic, Mexican – a lot of people don’t speak english and I don’t speak very fluent Hmong and can’t remember any of my high school Spanish, hence the waving and the beeping.

I knew my neighbors only by the names that I made up for them. Let’s see, there was the Pear Family – very big butts and kept a goat in their basement (a fact I found out from the guy who lived next door to them after they left in the middle of the night.) His name? Nearly Dead Ron. He’s an emaciated ex-junkie, not to be confused with Really Dead Ron, who used to be known as plain old Ron until he had a massive coronary in his kitchen a couple of years ago and was undiscovered until . . . well, that’s what the smell was.

The late family next door? I called them The Family, because that’s what they were – I know, I had a lapse in creativity when they moved in. I was in the throws of my personal Great Depression and the medication hadn’t kicked in. By the time it did, well . . . the name had stuck. The people across the street? Who lived in the former drug house? That I was responsible for shutting down? They hadn’t been around long enough for me to get a sense of them.

So, okay, I’m not a people person. I never was. I don’t even call my friends all that much. Of course, I blame my mother for that. See, back in the day, we had what was called a limited phone line, meaning we could only make one out-going call a day but, had unlimited incoming calls, and because my father was a police officer I wasn’t allowed to call up my friends and chat about nothing, because, what if he was trying to get through and couldn’t – no call waiting – and then, went out on his beat and got killed? Who’d get blamed for that? Guess. Score eleven on the guilt-o-meter.

Well, now, just a minute. Relationships are a two-way street, right? I mean, in my defense, no one ever made an effort to get to know me. In the 25 years that I’ve lived in my house, we’ve never had one Trick or Treater come and ring our doorbell. And we always have good candy! Mini Kit Kats!
I think it’s because . . . of our hill. There’s 13 steps to climb to get from the city sidewalk to our front gate and then another four steps to get up on our porch. Geeze. People! Make an effort! At least meet me halfway. Somewhere in the middle of the block. I’ll be the one in my car waving as I drive by.

Hung Up On Double Hungs

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then, windows are . . . what? In my case? They are single paned, inefficient, energy suckers. Our windows came with the house, new, 120 years ago, and I'm sure were quite something to behold at the old turn of the century (as opposed to the recent turn of the century.)

Windows were on the top our must-be-replaced-repaired-destroyed list that we made when we moved in, but somehow, a furnace, a roof, front steps, wiring and plumbing pushed them further and further down and well, then, came a dog (several), followed by children (two), and a business (one) that required more energy than any windows could waste.

We took to wearing more layers and so did our windows. In the fall, they sported tailored canvas shades topped with a chic mid-weight, no-fuss, relaxed, woven solid that once winter came, was layered with a heavier damask, that could be left open for a casual look or tied shut for something more mysterious.

But, despite the fashion statements, the westerly winds still found their way into the kids' rooms. When they were small, they'd come into our bed, not because of bad dreams, but for the warmth. My sex life may have been put on hold for several years, but, my feet weren't cold.

So . . . fast forward to 2009. Tax incentives. Energy audits. Maybe now is the right time to replace our double-hung relics. Maybe. We are in the "gathering of information" stage – i.e. getting quotes.

And, so far? We've learned quite a lot. About tempered glass, and energy ratings, and wood versus clad versus fiberglass. We've also learned to sit down before we open the quote and to have something to drink afterwards – oh, like, a nice mellowing merlot.

What we haven't quite figured out is if we should go ahead and do it or leave it for the next nice couple to figure out.

Couple of things I want to write about. 

Number one? Stimulus $$$.

Now, you (and I) would have thought that LBWN as an organization, doing all the good deeds it does –  stabilizing and revitalizing the neighborhood – that it would be right up there on the list of eligibility for some Big Money. Well, my friends, not exactly.

See, it would be different if LBWN were doing things citywide, then . . . maybe. But as I understand (kind of) the Governmentspeak, heretofore, therefore, etc., etc., because its scope is local . . . then . . . sorry.

But, perhaps there is hope. Now, this is just me talking . . . maybe one of the many funding sources is eligible and if they are, well, do I hear trickling down?

The other thing? The Alfons Art Gallery. 

Yes. There is an art gallery in the neighborhood. Art. Gallery. White walls. Wood floors. With actual art in it and on the walls. Who knew? I didn’t. And I graduated with a Fine Arts degree.

I thought that all the galleries were either downtown or in the Third Ward. How wrong I was. The Sisters of Saint Francis have as part of their mission, a commitment to the visual arts, and to honor that commitment, there is an open-to-the-public gallery (and gift shop) tucked away on the second floor of their HQ at 1501 S. Layton Blvd., that positively wreaks of sincerity. It’s not a place that feels intimidating. Hey, the Sisters were wearing black long before it was trendy.

Check it out. Seriously. 

Sorry if this posting is a bit of a downer, but . . . I wouldn't be honest if I didn't write about how the mortgage crisis has hit my corner of America.

The house next door to me is empty. Late, one night, I heard my neighbors coming and going, which wasn't unusual for them since they worked long hours and spent what little free time they had with their Church. I'd often see them rushing into their back door and within fifteen minutes, they'd be rushing out again, clothes changed, shirts pressed, Bibles in their hands. 

We exchanged waves. Chit-chatted over the fence about how our sons (same age) had shot up over the winter months, or complained about our daughters' don't-stop-backing-up-until-you-hear-a-crunch driving methods.

I remember when they first moved in . . . how excited they were about owning their first house, the plans they had, how happy they were with the size of the lot, the amount of bedrooms. 

And then, after 6 years, they were . . . just gone, and I'm left to speculate about what happened. Ballooning mortgage? Divorce? Job loss? I don't know. I just feel so . . .  bad. 

Why Layton Boulevard West? Click on the link below to see the video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlRR9Q8unCk

Ick. It’s early March and . . . while it’s not really winter, it’s not really spring, it’s . . . sminter? Wring? Sprinter?

Whatever this is, it sure isn’t pretty. The snow, what’s left of it, is gray tinged with black and hard as concrete. Whatever was underneath it, has now resurfaced, but soggier, flatter and even more lifeless than it was when whoever it was discarded it – the Mountain Dew bottle, the McDonald’s Happy Meal (not looking happy at all!)

Lawns are brown. The sky is grey. But, hey . . . Opening Day is just around the corner.

Yes. Brewer Baseball. The true first day of Spring as far as I’m concerned.

One of the great things about living here, is that the ballpark is a nice walk, a short bike ride, an even shorter bus ride (why drive when you have to pony up for parking?) away.

When my husband and I first moved into our house, we went to over 20 home games. That was back in the day when we didn’t have air conditioning and it was cooler in the bleachers, and tickets were $4.

I remember my husband camping out for opening day tickets – our house became the starting point for many an opening day party. Who says you can’t drink beer at 8 in the morning?

Let me just say this, that by the time the first pitch was thrown no one cared about the slushy game day conditions.

That was BC – before children. And we had to become responsible adults. Before there was a retractable roof.

This year? We are empty nesters. Control our own destiny. Unfortunately we are past the point of camping out for tickets (been there, done that). Opening day will find us outside (weather permitting) on the patio, Bob Uecker on the portable radio, our brats sizzling on the Weber and if the sun is out and the roof at Miller Park is open, we’ll hear the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd.

The best part? No lines for the bathroom.

Let’s face it, my neighborhood, like my family, is not perfect. Everybody has cousins, aunts, uncles who on any given day can drive one ca-razy, right? 

Do I wish that the video store had a better sense of display? I do. But, you know what? The hodge-podge of cardboard cut-out movie stars, dried hanging plants, and flashing neon, just like my 86 year old great-aunt who likes to wear plaids with her polka dots, accessorized with pearls and a shear scarf – it works.

During the warm weather months, the neighborhood, can get boisterous. Like my family around the patio. Everyone has something to say and whoever says it the loudest gets the conch. Living off of a busy thoroughfare may have something to do with the noise, just like my genetic make-up. Hot-headed Irish and stubborn Polish. Loudness comes with the territory. 

Sometimes there are disagreements, differences of opinion, hissy fits. And somebody vents their frustrations on, oh, let’s say, my garbage cart. Oh, well, it’s only plastic. Easily hosed off. Or, a person’s expressive nature takes hold and, well, while some see the cement retaining wall as a retaining wall, to others, it’s a blank canvass. Not to worry. That’s why they invented Goof-Off and the I’m Sorry line of Hallmark Cards.

And, just as my aunts, uncles, cousins, related to me by blood or by marriage can drive me crazy, they can surprise me with their warmth, caring, sensibility and selflessness. Like when the neighbors got together to make a blighted corner into a beautiful garden. 

Shea Park. The daffodils and hyacinths should be poking through any day.

Or when I get interrupted from my gardening by a passer by, who thanks me for making the street a better place.

No, my neighborhood, like my family isn’t perfect. Show me a family who is and I’ll show you a family with problems. At least we have the decency to lay all our cards on the table. Even if they are mostly jokers.

I live in a house that is 120 years old. It’s been through a lot. Wars. Storms. Civil unrest. Christmases. Birthday parties. Deaths. Boy, think about it. How many arguments are embedded in the plaster? Bad vibes in the woodwork? Dogs (cats) buried in the yard?
Whose idea was it to put indoor/outdoor carpeting on the walls in the upstairs bathroom? Why had someone decided it was better put self-stick, vinyl parquet-like floor tiles over a walnut and maple hardwood floor? Who or what left those scratches on the back of the attic door?

What did the neighborhood look like when the house was new? Were there more trees? Was it more “country” than city? These were some of the questions I wanted answers to.

Detective work is in my gene pool (my father was a cop for 40 years). I started digging for answers. I became a regular at the library and the Historical Society.

My house? Built by a guy named Albert G. Eissler, who was a business man (commission merchant, accountant, bookkeeper) affiliated by marriage (his wife’s niece Margaret) to the Grede (as in Grede Foundry) family. Got that? I got it back in 1990 when I talked to Margaret, 92 at the time.

She told me that Albert was born in West Bend and that he had polio and walked with a cane. She said that he was, “ . . . a very nice gentleman, always driving his horse and buggy to work early in the morning.” She also said that she remembered my house. That there was a beautiful stained glass window in the front door (gone) and a built-in-buffet cabinet in the dining room (thankfully, still here.)

Albert was married to Emma Weiss, whose father owned a general store on National Avenue between 2nd and 3rd street. According to Mrs. Grede, Emma was on the stocky side, a homebody and people admired her for her beautiful head of hair, “ . . . too bad it was a hair piece!”

The lay of the land?
Well, on the southwest corner of 27th and National was the entrance to National Park.
52 acres of rolling hills, small lakes, a race track (horses), a fancy brick hotel and a roller coaster. And then, while sitting at a impressive oak table in the Milwaukee County Historical Society, with ill-fitting white cotton gloves that made my hands look like they should be on a cartoon character, I leafed through dozens of photographs . . . men in dark suits, with cinched-waisted, long-skirted women who posed in front of giant felled trees, next to rushing waterfalls . . . hunting parties in a clearing of white birch trees . . . outcroppings of boulders . . . pictures that looked like they came from somewhere else, Vermont? Connecticut?

No. My street. My block. This neighborhood.
The trees were felled. The brooks, the ravines, the streams, all filled in. What was rolling was leveled and laid out in an orderly grid pattern of streets and alleys.

Regret consumed me. I resented the Powers That Were. Boy, I would have given anything to be at that meeting when it was decided to steam roll the virgin wilderness to make way for progress. Where was that Time Machine when I needed it? Damn!

What was lost, clouded my view of what could be.

In the case of my house, what was gone could be replaced or restored. I could buy another stained glass window for the front door. We could remove someone else’s bad taste, sand the scratches out of the doors, patch the holes in the walls.

I couldn’t restore the ravines. Or the lakes. Or the trees. I could only do my part by restoring my little corner of the world. Maybe making sure that what the future holds for this neighborhood will make up for what was lost.

And when I walk my dog . . . and we get to the corner of South 28th and Scott? I can hear the former rocky stream, rushing underneath the sewer grates.

Saturday was Valentine’s Day – which made me pause for a moment and assess the state of my relationship, and . . . after 26 years, I think we are in a rut, and by “we” I mean me and my neighborhood.

We’ve let ourselves go. Gotten too complacent. I’ll be the first one to admit that over the course of a long, cold, snowy winter, I may have let certain things slide . . . the last time I ran a razor over my legs coincided with the last day I gave up on tending to my lawn care duties sometime in October. Why shave when I’d be wearing long pants for the next 7 or 8 months? Why mow the lawn (or pick up dog poo) when it could snow at any minute?

Both of us have gotten a bit sloppy in our appearance. I blame this time of year. It’s those winter doldrums. I mean, the snow, much like my big puffy winter coat, covered a lot of sins like, my fat thighs, paunch and lack of a fashion sense. In the case of my neighborhood? The snow covered the litter, the sparse lawns and buried all the things that everyone decided could wait until spring.

And there’s always the What ifs – this was not my first choice for a neighborhood.

There were other suitors – the trendy East side, Bay View, ‘Tosa – they were attractive enough, but . . . this neighborhood? Well, it needed me. And, dare I say . . . I found it’s bad boy rough-around-the-edges vibe rather appealing, especially when it came time for my kids to invite friends, who lived in Brookfield over for a play date.

Me: Sure, Tiffany can come over this Saturday. We live on South 33rd Street off of National Avenue.
Tiffany’s mother: Oh (long pause) okay.
Me: Is that a problem? I mean, time wise?
Tiffany’s mother: No. No. It’s just that–I didn’t know–(long pause)Um . . . is it–I mean, that neighborhood . . . would the kids be safe playing outside?
Me: Safe? As far as what goes?
Tiffany’s mother: You know . . . crime?
Me: Well, my kids haven’t been involved in a crime spree in at least a couple of weeks.
Tiffany’s mother: (silence)
Me: I was joking.
Tiffany’s mother: I mean . . . on second thought, maybe your kids could come over here?
Me: Brookfield? Ooo. I don’t know. You don’t have sidewalks.

After so much time spent together, every relationship hits a wall, and ours is no different. I just wish that whoever keeps hitting the wall – or in this case, the decorative fencing on Layton Boulevard – would stop.

There was only one time when I was ready to call it quits. To throw in the towel. It was during one summer and there was a house on our block . . . let’s just say the people who lived there were engaged in nefarious activities that spilled out onto the street and my lawn. And after a while, I got sick and tired of it. Long story short? I informed the MPD and one day, they paid my neighbors a visit (that would be Copspeak for a bust). My former neighbors now have a different place of residence, somewhere in Waupun and Taycheedah.

We don’t keep in touch.

The street has never been so quiet. Come spring, when I sit on my patio, with my glass of white wine, I'll hear soft swells of Mariachi music, smell the garlic roasting from the Thai restaurants down National Avenue, and I’m in love again.

I grew up in a neighborhood where the people – like the two-bedroom ranch houses – were all alike. Short. Squat. White. The only color came in the rows of red geraniums regimentally planted in the flower beds at parade rest.

And then I went to college to study art and thought that I would put down roots in the neighborhood that surrounded UWM, because it was where I found “my people.” Unfortunately, putting down east side roots required coughing up a hefty down payment and no matter how many sofa cushions I looked under, or old coat pockets we went through, my husband and I came up a little short.

We were looking for an old house, something with a big yard, because we were going to have lots of kids – or dogs, we couldn’t decide. We found our fixer upper in a part of Milwaukee called Silver City. And, first impressions? Well, I have to say I felt a bit embarrassed for the old girl, much in the same way I did whenever I saw tabloid pictures of movie stars caught without their make up on. Have you seen Charlize Theron? Oh. My. God.

The house on 33rd street was a fading painted lady. Her front sagged (at over 100 years old my front would sag too), her sill was rotted, her stature had demurred, but, like Charlize, she had good bones. We dove in. Upgraded. Sanded. Stripped. Boiled. Ripped.

We decided to paint her in 3 colors – olive green, a darker green and a red. My parents, who still lived in the same subdivision, in the same house that I grew up in, thought we were nuts.

That was back in 1983, and we’ve only just had to have her re-painted. This time we ramped it up to 4 colors – a lighter green, gold, red and dark green. We added the red color at the last minute because the painters kept calling it The Green Bay Packer house, and while I am a fan, well . . . even I thought that was a bit too much.

Okay, I’ve got a lot of friends who live in Shorewood – I bet a picture of a tree-lined, bungalowed street just popped into your head, am I right? Other friends who live in ‘Tosa (cue up another tree-lined street) and others who live in Brookfield (insert standard subdivision image here!)

They all want to know about my neighborhood, why I live there – oh, that's fodder for another blog posting – and then they’ll ask me to describe it . . . and, I never had a succinct answer until now.

I live in . . . a neighborhood of color. Vibrant. Bold. Where the people are as diverse as the architecture – Milwaukee bungalows, Victorian worker’s cottages, brick colonials, houses designed by Wright and Russell Barr Williamson. White houses with green trim? Oh, please! Try something in a lime green and teal with rose accents. Lipstick red front doors. Purple trim. And, guess what? The families who live inside those candy-colored cottages, they’re not gloomy people. How can they be?

My favorite houses sit side by side on Greenfield Avenue. One is lime green, the other is a blue that reminds me of the warm waters off the coast of Puerto Vallarta.
On a dreary November day they dare me to be depressed, and guess what? Not going to happen.

Thanks to the Hank

I never thought that I would admit this to anyone, but, okay, here goes . . . I can’t get enough of this winter.

Seriously. I’m not being sarcastic. I really love it.

And, it has nothing to do with my meds, but everything to do with the Henry Aaron State Trail. And Seamus, my black Lab.

I started walking down there in the fall after my dog Harvey – a 13 year old Golden Retriever – died. See, we had known that Harv was going down hill for awhile, so we got a back up dog, the black lab, but, see, I had forgotten what a puppy was like, energywise, since for the past 6 years, Harvey was pretty much like an 80 pound cat.

Seamus and his litter mates were born out in the wilds of Waukesha County on a 20 acre spread with a small lake and horses! Labrador Nirvana. What could I offer him? Oh, a double city lot with something that passed for a lawn and miles of concrete. Nice! My guilt-o-meter went into overdrive.

Walks around the neighborhood were all fine and dandy, but . . . this dog was wired for running and water and better yet, running into water. But where?

Enter the Hank. It met all the requirements. Close. Accessible. Water. Open spaces. Plenty of stuff to roll in and muck to muck in.

Oh, and let it be known that I always pick up after my dog – those Milwaukee Journal Sentinel bags are soo handy! And that he is never allowed to be off his lead. We met a Brittany Spaniel down on the river bank, once, ambling along, ignoring his owner who yelled and whistled in the parking lot. Some people!

Not only is the walk on the Hank great for the dog, it’s great for me. My doctor told me that I had to get more exercise. She recommended a tread mill. A tread mill? On a tread mill, I would never get to see leopard frogs, a north american mink, red-tailed hawks, great blue herons, salmon, brown trout, not to mention wild flowers, which I love, but Seamus only cares about when it comes time for him to pee.