This is 3WW. Try it!
I meant to link to Etan Patz I know even his family believes him dead and are 99% percent sure who did it. Strangely the irrational romantic in me harbors hope. Manhattan is like a small town in many ways and I worked with several people who knew the Patz family. There were so many stories, rumors and yes horrible stories about the parents people later regretted telling.
New York, late May 1979

The missing signs seemed to be everywhere. At first they shocked her. She had never seen so many, and they had always been for some teenager who probably ran away or an older person who lost his way, perhaps intentionally.

But these were for a seven year old boy, Etan Patz. His mother let him walk part way to the bus stop alone for the first time and never saw him again.

The summer of Sam had happened two years earlier. Now it was the late spring of Etan. She, like Etan and his family lived in Soho. In school a few years earlier somebody did a study of residential patterns in Soho. Almost no children lived in Soho then. Now every other block had at least two children.

Her boyfriend wanted children. They lived in a huge loft that until recently had housed a mens tie company. She didn’t think this was a good neighborhood for children. There were still many factories and some showrooms. She felt too young and too enamored with this new New York that hadn’t existed ten years earlier and was rapidly morphing into a new and exciting city. She wanted to embrace everything,

You couldn’t be timid if you lived in a warehouse district. They didn’t live in Soho proper but further west in Tribeca. Nobody had heard of Tribeca. People thought the buildings dreary but you could see the river from their loft,

Every morning she would walk 55 blocks uptown and three avenues east to her job at a publishing company. Unlike most of the other girls she didn’t have a degree in English but in Urban Studies–both undergrad and grad. The publishing company she worked for was doing a series of books on New York, both its history and today. The publisher believed in the city. So did she.

But that Saturday night/Sunday morning when she and her boyfriend walked home from an early breakfast at the Kiev after a night of dancing they were sobered by the posters and couldn’t shake the feeling that something horrible had happened to New York.

Etan Patz was the first child on a milk carton. He went missing 30 years ago May 25th New York was to regain its fiscal standing but something big changed that week. You first noticed it in the missing posters and all the talk about his family. It was only later you realized that kids didn’t run as freely.

My plumbing problems have been solved. They didn’t have to break into the bamboo. Hate to admit it but there are times I’m so happy to see people from the land of big hair, big nails and everybody is connected–or so they think here about Jersey. I got the owner of the company’s accent down to almost the exact town. He was here Sunday. The master plumber on the job today was from the land of cheese steaks, American Bandstand, and some of the greatest 50′s music.
Tomorrow I’m having the AC inspected and then hopefully….renovation phase one through five will be finished. My vegetable plants are so happy now that water has been restored to the outside.

Here’s 3WW I didn’t mean to write what I did. It just came out.
“Don’t give me that shit,” she said. He stared at her. She seemed so calm as she questioned his authority. She had always did what he asked of her. He was efficient. He knew what was best.

She fiercely cut the tomatoes. He was mesmerized as he watched. Chop. Chop. She seemed to optimize each chop. Chop. Put bowl in sink. Rinse. After she put the bowl in the dishwasher she took a cucumber out of the fridge. He watched her chop it quickly and deftly.

He had never seen a person cut with such precision. Each piece was tiny and perfect. Better than the results from a food processor or mandolin. Not that he had ever seen a person use one. He watched a lot of late night TV ads.

She mixed the tomatoes and cucumbers with a bit of olive oil and vinegar. “Here,’ she said smiling, “Israeli salad made just for you.”

What was she really saying? Was the Mossad coming for him? He wished he hadn’t smoked so much pot. She was better at that than him. Not that he would admit it. She never became paranoid. She never smoked before breakfast, or during the day now that he thought about it.

He looked at her. She had the same mousey hair, pinched face and bad posture that she had since he began keeping her in the cage only letting her out to cook meals for him. He thought she had become more compliant. He would have never let her use the knives if he thought….No, that was his fantasy. She just looked like she belonged in a cage. He had many fantasies all involving her and places she couldn’t emerge whole from.

He watched in amazement as the treacherous bitch stuck one of the knives through his heart and calmly walked out of the room.

As he lay dying he heard her say to somebody: “he’s so gone he probably thinks I stuck a knife in him. Thanks for the LSD. Let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t you want to call the cops?”
“No, I just want my life back. Somewhere far far away.”

I was angry. My first plumbing emergency that I actually had to pay for. Or it might not have been, anyway that was yesterday….

Tomorrow (Monday) I’m buying things for the backyard, side and all around really, and then will be handing the keys, or bronzed hundred dollar bill & framed platinum card to some lucky person who has decided to buy a house and renovate it, despite all the negative feelings.

It’s a lonely feeling despite constantly being surrounded by people. A feeling of “if I hadn’t bought the house I could have traveled the world. I could have done this….done that….” Not lonely in the traditional sense but lonely in the “there’s no one expert who could have helped me come to a decision.” I think I made a good decision. Here’s an article in The New York Times Magazine by an economics reporter who defends his arrogant and sickening decision to almost willfully go into foreclosure. I know the article wasn’t written to make me feel great but it did.

I need to be grounded and I certainly have achieved that. I’m wedded to this house. And I know there will be times the house tries to tell me who is the boss. But I will know, in my heart, that I did everything possible to make an 80′s beach house into a home for this century.

My sister objects when I say I live in a court though the sign says “court,” and maybe she’s right. It could be an enclave.

I think of my enclave, and the surrounding blocks as Laurel Canyon without the Canyon, debauchery, and crazy people in media. Or Coconut Grove FL in the 70′s without the exotic tropical flora, debauchery and crazed hippies.

I’m doing my best to make it exotic with a large flower bed that looks like a dog ate the flowers but EldonOne assures me in a week the flowers will blossom. I’m sensing a similarity in temperature ranges to Provence as at least four people have offered me Rosemary (I will take it from EldonOne) and I’m growing lavender, much lavender, that I hope to be able to offer house guests as a souvenir of their stay.

Tomorrow I should be getting outdoor furniture,* some palm trees and more tropical flora though this winter was cold, I think I have learned how to save them from frost and snow. I took pictures of the palms I was growing in the townhouse and was going to entitle them “Snow will stick in SC when a Black man is inaugurated president,” but I didn’t really think of that then.

*The outdoor furniture might be difficult. This whole house has been furnished with old (mine) furniture or cheap yet good furniture from the Internet, Target, Best Buy, and uh Wal Mart has played enough of a role for my b-i-l, niece and I to have a running joke. My sister has incredible style and a head for bargains but she’s so not the Wal Mart type. Neither am I or CLo, and yes we know the North Myrtle Wal Mart is where Northerners go to look at the Rednecks and feel superior, enough have told us, but…we have found some incredible things there.

My sister would say “this is so beautiful. Where’s it from?” The answer would usually be Wal Mart. My sister asked when we passed Dietra (I don’t know a person who knows how to pronounce that) Lane “that’s so beautiful. Where does it lead? ” “uh, Wal Mart.”

I don’t know who was the master of suburban planning who designed the Lowes (home store) shopping center and the one next to it (Home Depot, Wal Mart with two small strip malls). You can see them from Route 17, and sort of see the Lowes shopping center but not so that it interferes with anything and can’t see the Wal Mart one at all. I find that incredible.

Bike week has been a bust. Probably much to do with the Myrtle Beach helmet laws and I would think a lot to do with the recession though that’s being underplayed.

The City of North Myrtle is proposing to do away with Mayfest more commonly known as “Beach Boy” day. That would be a shame as it really is fun and I decided to move here last year on Beach Boy day so yes it has a direct incredible economic ramification on the city.

Oh, I try not buying things from China but I would have to give up Wal Mart and really anyplace cheap. So I was looking at a label and something said “made in Pakistan.” Which is worse? I think the later but what do I know?

This was written a couple of days ago. When I was getting a cold. EldonOne and Jimbo find it amazing how when the weather is rainy, cloudy and rain humid, I’m congested. After the sun comes out, I’m fine. Unfortunately sometimes I can’t beat it, and the folowing was written under the influence of foggy skies and foggy chest. With the dreaded head cold next to come

I’m in a ninth inning slump. I hate baseball metaphors but it so describes how I feel.

Nobody has acknowledged my role in bringing rain to the South–it rained for the first two days I was ever here almost two years ago.
Despite the fire it’s been a rainy two years. It does dry out quickly even near the ocean and can feel almost desert like. However we’re having a rain spate–I was in New York when it was beautiful here–and it’s supposed to rain for the next ten days. I have many people praying for good weather when my cousin G gets here. It’s been a long time since we have spent any time together and I want her to have a great time.

My friends think I’m ignoring them and put me on notice last night that they will no longer call me. I have to initiate all contact. I tried explaining that my ears are stuffed and I did sound like a fog horn. The allergy turned into the dreaded cold and went into my nose which made me very happy as well these days you just don’t want lung issues especially if you were in Queens several weeks ago. LaGuardia Airport and a cab ride but I’m pretty sure that counts. I also took the train out to the Island one day.

So I called my friends this morning and they didn’t answer. I’m really not in the mood for games. Really all I want to do is get back into bed but the Eldon’s are finishing the mulching, the hardware for the outdoor shower and well they overload my trash cans making it impossible for me to take the trash neatly to the curb. They’re going to take it away in the trailer later today.

I do trash in large kitchen bags and then put them neatly in big trash bags in the adorable trash cans with wheels. This way I will never go over the 50 pound weight limit if you want your trash picked up by the city–part of the water company. Most people bring their trash to the dump or drive around looking for city owned bins and throw their trash into them. When I was new here I thought this was a city of hoarders who would get fed up and drive their trash to different locations. Now that I know what they’re doing I spent a pleasant move in weekend driving from one trash bin to another.

I know most people couldn’t care less about the above but I lived in apartments most of my life and this is new and kind of interesting and a bit less fun but….I have no idea what I was attempting to say. Head colds apparently affect my whole head and brain

It’s bike week which is a bust this year as Myrtle Beach, not North Myrtle, instituted helmet laws and some other things. Older bikers are staying in the house across from mine. Both male and female have long braids, kinda like Willie Nelson but unfortunately they’re not Willie. They ride trike bikes which are becoming increasingly common as bikers age and suffer damage to their knees. Apparently having good knees plays a large part in bike riding.

Obviously I’m learning a lot of new things. Just wish my friends were speaking to me. Feel as if I did something very wrong. That could be my cold as they make me feel guilty in general and specific

I will have new pictures in my house photo blog as soon as the outside is finished. My old couch is in my office. I have about four boxes left to unpack and two suitcases. Don’t know why the end is always such a tortoise game.
It is raining. I turn into a congested grouch when it rains. I need my house finished so I can not feel inhibited. I find I do better when I’m away from my computer for a couple of days or more. I’m going to try handwriting though I don’t seem to be able to put thoughts on paper with pen.

Lately I have been having dreams I don’t remember when I wake up but I wake up thinking my mother is alive. 30 seconds or so later I remember and I feel so sad.

I don’t think this has anything to do with Mother’s Day or time dead or anything like that.

My mother would be proud that I bought and renovated a house and its grounds (irregular plot of land or so the deed says.)

This weekend was the first time I could lie in my yard and read. It was so frigging cool. My yard! I’m starting a flower and vegetable garden. Flowers because they’re beautiful and vegetables because I love them, but have resorted to buying frozen here as I don’t find them very good. I am very spoiled. Having Fairway and incredible Farmer’s Markets at my fingertips. I also dialed out a lot. Something I think I have done once here. When I’m in New York though…

My house is slowly becoming a home. I want to share it with family and friends. The renovation, on a budget but using “quality” materials would be an achievement for anybody. For me it’s akin to climbing Mt Everest.

All I have left to do is get outdoor furniture, secondhand furniture for the sunroom, unpack the last few boxes and organize my office. I have an office! And a reading room across from it. In Manhattan my entire apartment was between 615-675 square feet depending on who was doing the measuring. My outdoor areas, not counting the upstairs deck is 650 square feet. Small by some standards. A great sized footprint according to mine.

I take none of this for granted. I’m busting with pride and joy. I would so love my parents to have seen this. Maybe they have…..

Next year Chicago and Earth Wind & Fire will be at the annual Mayfest on Main celebration.
My sister thinks I moved to paradise. Maybe I did.

Mothers are usually wonderful people. At least to their families. My mother was perfect, not, but I loved her anyway and think of her many days.

My mother was five foot tall, barely, at her wedding and then again in the last few years weighed 80 pounds.

She was adult. She was mature. In my family you always knew who the mommy was. Though from an early age (mine) she treated me with the respect due a much older person. It’s the way I treat kids I know are hankering to be adult–and they love me even during difficult years, even when older I think in part because of that.

The last five or six years of my mother’s life were difficult. She was frail but her mind was sharp. Sometimes I wished that her mind was a little less….just so she would be less demanding though I knew she would probably be more demanding.

It’s funny to say that in “those days you didn’t talk about aging mothers,” when those days were from 96 to 01. I finished grad school in 96–geriatric social work and really people liked to talk more about dementia, or advanced directives, or basically anything than how to keep a mother independent and at home when she was for intensive purposes blind and frail.

She began only eating in front of my sister and I as table manners were paramount to her. It hurt so much to see an incredibly social person still want to be social but….

The thing was as long as my mother was in this world I knew somebody loved me unconditionally. I knew somebody thought me perfect. I was still the child, though a very adult one, and she was still the mother.

For Mother’s Day we used to give her White Shoulders cologne until she begged us to stop. Then one year she asked for it again. It wasn’t as easy to find. Then there was the Mother’s Day she told us to forget it. My father got real into that and she spoke to none of us for oh maybe eight hours.

My father’s last Mother’s Day he insisted we go to the Catskills to a resort none of us had seen in 20 years. It was fun. My father was healthy or so we and he thought. He just had a feeling and when we have feelings we act on them.

I hate Mother’s Day. People should honor their mothers all year round. We don’t need a Hallmark Holiday basically designed to make all women without children feel horrible.

This was the first time I liked the recession as there were fewer ads in the paper–I DVR everything I watch on TV so…..

But still there are many mother’s I personally like so Happy Mother’s Day.

Just remember I have a birthday in July and don’t get to celebrate Mother’s Day or anniversaries or….God this sounds like a fatal illness.

And I hate all the blogs that celebrate the wonders of mothers with free gifts etc. You can make an impact on a kid without being their mother. I’m not saying that mother’s aren’t the most important people as I think they’re priceless if they don’t impart all their issues onto their kids. Just that Mother’s Day is one day I prefer sleeping through. Neither having a kid nor a mother

The cab drove from Laguardia through Queens where I wanted to soak in the Tudor style apartments, Bronx style apartments, garden apartments, single family houses that cried out “Archie Bunker slept here” when the cab driver kept interrupting my reverie. “Where are you from?” Uh here, I thought but didn’t say. “Do you work?” I nodded something. “Are you married?” He kept repeating that question. I looked at the cab. Yes it was a licensed yellow that I had gotten at the cab line at the ugliest airport anywhere. Finally I spoke. “Could you be quiet?” “But I’m asking are you married?” “Actually I don’t answer questions like that. I am a New Yorker and I’m paying you so I don’t have to entertain you.”

He kept asking questions anyway. When we arrived in Manhattan I wanted to memorize the buildings that were so familiar and most so old. My father grew up in East Harlem and though his building was thrown down for Schoenberg Plaza there ae many buildings that look like his. And many buildings that look as if they could have been in The East Village before gentrification. And many other buildings with real memories or memories of similar ones.

I wondered if there’s an expiration date on men trying to be too friendly. it’s not as if i’m in or near my glory days. I found men who act like that obnoxious then and just as obnoxious now. More because the men you wish would look at you don’t.
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I’m back from NY where it rained for seven out of eight days but I had a great time anyway. Though I hate rain I braved it and walked because to take transportation in Manhattan, public or private, most of the time is to lose the essence of NY.

I was offline most of the week and loved it. I began to remember the lost art of conversation without googling for a quick answer.

Of course I’m all bronchial today and really happy I don’t live in NY. Though I love it, everybody’s faces and bodies seemed gray. Not hair, just the rest. That was a bit disconcerting.

I had old metrocards and did use the subway a few times. The first time I had five cents left. This was disconcerting until I found out the subway fare had gone up and you’re left with very strange increments.

I saw almost all NY friends including one very special one who I hadn’t seen in many a decade. We picked up where we left off. That was very cool. I wish I could have told my parents. My friend and I met at camp when we were nine or so and my parents always loved her and her family. They’re very special. It was great seeing a friend who knew my parents when they were young and ruled the world or so I thought. She thought her parents did also and I don’t have too many friends with that particular memory or mind set. We learn that nobody including our parents are perfect or close to it and I think we really always knew but as long as our parents are on this earth we feel the pull of unconditional love toward us. You pull the unconditional love toward the next generations. I hope I’m explaining this somewhat coherently.

I went to a Harlem with a group of friends, only one Black and she wanted to know where all the Black people had moved.

Spirit was three hours late last night. By the time I arrived at the airport here I was a space cadet.

I have to get back to bed or watch my flat screen TV or lie in my newly decked irregular plot of land. It’s 650 square feet which is the same or a bit larger than my Manhattan apartment which brought me a nice sum of money. For once I don’t feel guilty but am still in shock I pulled that off and was able to buy a wonderful house and renovate it to my standards.

I will do 3WW next week. I’m too tired to comment or think of using a prompt.