Turf Talk

I love my new neighborhood, Ukrainian Village. Its close to affordable good food, a giant new chain grocery store, bars, friends. My apartment rules. That said, the area is a little rough around the edges (which is fine by me). It's sort of like a cleaned up Mission, my old neighborhood in SF. Anyway, last week I noticed the largest throw-up of gang graffiti I've seen in Chicago by the Latin Kings. Granted, I've only lived in Bucktown before this where there's no graffiti anywhere. I do work in Bronzeville though but I don't even see it down here too much either. Today I took Audrey out at 7 am, and saw the following on the church that is directly next door to my house:





Whirrrr turf war! I looked up the info on ChicagoGangs.org and found the following info:

My house (info on the Insane C-Notes:



Other graffiti by the grocery store:



My boss explained to me that the upside down pitchfork thingy is actually an upside down crown and it means basically, fuck you latin kings.

I'm not really afraid or upset by any of this. I've lived in far worse areas and it' s not like I'll be caught in some wild crossfire ever. Seems more just some silly war in name only. Maybe in drug stuff but not violence. What I would like to know is:

1. Who is wolfy and who was before wolfy?
2. How many hits will this post generate by people looking for Chicago gang info?
3. How will the super poor barely operating church next door pay to paint over that?

a bloody suburban weekend

Friday night Ed, Andy, Nate and I went on a “suburban double date.” The idea was born when Ed and I were bored at work and looking to do something different that evening. We decided dinner at the mall in Schaumburg and a movie at the suburban multiplex would be fun. So the four of us got in Ed’s car (its for sale!) and trekked to the suburbs via the lovely interstate. We ate at a Ruby Tuesday’s. The last time I ate there was at lunch time with my grandparents at least five years ago for their salad bar. I didn’t know that it was all burgers and beef on the menu! Literally, pages and pages of red meat. We had fun under the faux-tiffany lighting and fake authentic décor. Nate even wore some shirt his parents got him that is pretty horrid to celebrate the suburbs.

Then we drove to the other side of the mall and went to a movie. We saw Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?. Nobody bothered to tell Nate it was a Tyler Perry movie until we got there because I knew he’d probably ditch if he found out. It was…ok…I mean it’s a romantic comedy with bad acting that is 30 minutes longer than it should be. Who would expect anything more? The best part was the audience around us making comments at everything in the movie. I especially liked when all the women whooped when shirtless dudes came on. We got home around 1 a.m., and declared suburban night a success, and also something that doesn’t need to be conquered again for quite some time.

At home. I ask Nate to walk Audrey one last time because I’m exhausted. I lay in bed, and I know he’s walking her around the block because he wanted a cigarette. A few minutes later I hear a ton of dogs barking like mad and a guy shouting and Nate shouting “Audrey Audrey!” It went on for what felt like an eternity but was probably 45 seconds. I should have just gone right out there but I didn’t have shoes on, and was already in bed. Nate comes back in and is like “your neighbors dogs attacked Audrey” so I have to check Audrey for bites. She’s covered in slobber and totally freaked out, but at first I didn’t see any blood. Then on the bed Nate and I are rubbing her stomach and trying to get her to feel happy and safe and I notice blood on her leg. Not tons of blood, but two definite separate attack marks that were bleeding. She licked her leg all night trying to clean it poor little girl.

If you remember awhile back, she got attacked in the hallway by these very same dogs. This is also the nosy neighbor woman who I don’t like in the first place. So I told her I needed to see her vaccination records for her pets since they made Audrey bleed. She tells me she can’t find them because of “all the boxes” (please god tell me that means she is moving out), but gave me her vet’s number instead. I don’t really need to see them, Audrey wasn’t hurt all that bad, but I said that to show her this can’t just be brushed off. She told me she was up all night crying over it, and really I was like “good you should be.” I asked her when she got the 3rd dog (she used to only have two uncontrollable ones) and she glared, looked at her boyfriend, and was like “he found her and couldn’t let her be a stray.” I told her she needs to get control of her pets. I really wanted to say “this is the second time your dogs have done this to Audrey, and next time the landlord and animal care and control are being called” but I’m too big of a wuss and scaredy cat to say that.

So poor Audrey! She seems fine now, her normal lapdog self. She’s been barking meaner and more often when people walk by the apartment, but that makes total sense. I feel bad mostly because today is my 2 year anniversary with her! Who wants to get attacked right before their 2 year anniversary with their mommy? Not Audrey. Oh and guess what else? I’m at work, doing one of my Sunday shifts, instead of enjoying this beautiful day outside with my dog and thinking about how she’s changed my life and how I love her more than I love most humans. When I get home I’ll take her for a long walk where she can sniff and roll in dirt and be happy. Audrey you are the best thing to ever happen to me, you are always there for me, you know when I’m bumming out, you wake me up in the morning and go to sleep with me at night, you are a total joy, you love having Nate around and he loves hanging out with you, you are the raddest little mutt on earth. So sorry you got busted up Friday, but I believe you were once from the streets anyway and can handle a few thug dogs.

Fued Dos

A sheriff was here looking for the new neighbors, and of course nosy neighbor intervened. I let the sheriff in (he was here as I got home), nosy neighbor started yackin in the intercom, and he said "who's that on the intercom?" I said "it's [name], the upstairs neighbor." He gave me a quizzical look as to why she'd be talking on the intercom and I said, "she's lived here a long time" and gave him a look. He gave me the most awesome look and said "oh great." Clearly, he's dealt with many a nosy long-time neighbor before. The new neighbors weren't home (haven't heard a peep out of them since Wednesday), and I didn't bother to listen to top floor neighbor. Walking Audrey in the warm weather was more important.

What is it that sheriffs do anyway? Why would a sheriff be here instead of a plain ole cop? Someone enlighten me.

Neighbor Feud

My neighbors have been feuding. A bit of background:

1. Top floor neighbor - TFN - lived in building for something like 15 years. A busybody, but nice enough. Got Audrey some dog biscuits when I moved in. A few months later her insane dogs attacked Audrey. I stay out of her way for the most part because thats how I roll with my neighbors - I'd rather not know them.

2. New neighbors on main floor - NN - moved in maybe 1-2 months ago. I'm not exactly sure who lives there because there's a constant stream of people going in and out. Sometimes I think it's these stylish gay guys with a Jack Russell Terrier. Other times I think its this lady. They always have all these youth-types coming in and out. They don't bother me at all, so I just leave them alone. The one I met seemed really nice.

So TFN hates NN because NN's pals always ring TFN's buzzer. This mistake is understandable as our buzzers aren't marked. Irritating yes, but also an honest mistake. So one day she went downstairs and flipped out on them. It was pretty exciting. Resolution: marked her buzzer clearly (duh).

It should be mentioned here that New Neighbs are African American. I'm concerned that she's only being this vigilant with them because of racial stereotypes. As in, I'm not sure she'd treat a white couple the same way in this situation. She always seems to be yelling at them for something, which I don't really understand because they aren't noisy. So it's sort of a delicate situation. I don't want to label her that way, but I also don't think she's being very fair to them. She has called the cops on them before, for reasons I don't know.

Cut to this past Monday. I walked Audrey one last time just minutes before 11 pm. While out there, I see a car full of people yelling at a woman-NN (NN was holding the door open to yell at them). I didn't think much of it. Audrey pees, I return indoors. Only a few minutes later I hear door slams, sort of a scuffle...I'm starting to get irritated because the noise puts Audrey on edge. Then a few minutes later 3 cop cars show up. I assumed that TFN got pissed again about the noise and called the cops. I thought it odd that so many cops would come for a noise complaint. I see TFN out there gesticulating wildly to the cops, giving a statement. The cops were here for an hour, which I found odd for a simple dispute between neighbors. I couldn't really hear through the window, and I couldn't open the window because it would be so obvious. I did, however, hear TFN say something about an armed robbery in the building. Now this freaks me out, and reminds me a little too closely of my robbery in SF a few years ago. I live alone in a 'garden' apartment. I have to go in and out of the building all the time with the dog. I was just minutes off from the alleged robbery time. I tried to calm down because I didn't really know what had happened, and I knew TFN was already all up in NN's business.

So a few days go by, no landlord call to be like "uh what happened," no new developments. I assumed that nothing happened, and that TFN was indeed being a douche.

Then this morning I am walking Audrey and TFN is leaving the building. She stops me and says "did you see all the cops here Monday?" I tell her yes and ask what happened. She told me "armed robbery," and I asked her for more info.

Apparently, in her words (further confirming my fears of her racism) "two women and a huge black guy that know NN rang my [TFN] buzzer over and over, and when they couldn't get in they [somehow got inside I forgot what she said] came into NNs apartment, stole their car keys then stole their car. Those new neighbors are trouble."

!!!!

So a few things: 1 - she didn't mention any weapon...2 - the robbery was between people who knew each other, not some random scary dude hiding in the hallway waiting to get any random who came in.

Seems like maybe TFN is blowing the incident out of proportion a bit, and I was calmed to know that it was between people who knew each other. BUT, it is a bit unsettling that my new neighbors associate with people who would do that, and makes me more wary of all the people they have coming in and out of the building. That said, they still really don't bother me at all so in the end I sort of don't care. I'll probably pay a bit more attention to my surroundings when I'm outside with Audrey late at night though. Don't want to walk into the wrong situation.