Soup Night anyone? What do you do to help in your community....

Do the slow children make it past your roadblock ?

Now THAT is a great idea. What a great show.

I hope so. I enjoy it. I only take it on in the fall... Too much work to do all year around - but once a month for 2 or 3 months is good.

The ones that make it past my dogs generally can make it past the road blocks.

I always think that this is what the kids are going to remember about halloween, when they grow up.

"hey, remember that house that always showed the charlie brown movie on the front lawn?"

Mis, I see I was unclear, inscrutable, about my neighborhood experience yesterday. To summarize,

- we lived in a tough neighborhood. (see my ref to 7 broken windows)
- we bought in a place that most banks would not lend to re mortgages; it was called redlining
- it was an interesting place, artists and writers and gangs and postal workers and grocery store workers, musicians and hippies key to the scene - lived there
- it was, from the first I was there a politicized place, with raucous town council meetings
- my husband and I got into that over time, in different capacities - me as a facilitator for 'landuse' decisions preferred by the community, for the city of LA, like how high you could build, etc.
- it is now where Lindsey Lohan lives, last I heard, not that I care - but it is an indicator of change
- the street where we had our gallery/theater is now so chic you could throw up, but still interesting - over my years in the area, the street went up and down and up and down and up and down. Abraham Ribicoff's (politician) daughter was killed buy a robber there, and Eileen Brennan (then out for dinner with Goldie Hawn) hit by a car..
- some now but not then famous architects used Venice for a playground, including Frank Gehry
- there is a building on one of the streets designed by Frank Gehry, with a Claus Oldenburg sculpture in front (binoculars)
- the original Gold's gym (far as I know the original) is there
- Google is expanding and has bought the Gehry building, and I think the Gold's Gym building
- this will affect the neighborhood, including whatever is left now of gang territory
- I know this by an email from an old neighbor (I left in '99)

My old neighbor is saying.. "restaurants will go out of their minds!"


So - that's what I meant about neighborhoods and groups developing. I'm sure Venice is now even more complicated than when I left.

Please don 't think me anti-canine
when I express my wish that the dogs be slower than the children.





David

Sometimes I go to the Soup Nazi on 55th Street.
He has good Lobster Bisque.





David

I like the sound of that neighborhood Osso. It sounds more urban than mine. We are decidedly an old county and an older neighborhood. Which I like immensley. The funny thing about it is - what drew us to it in the first place was the huge lots and space there is....but because of that - I just don't feel as close to my neighbors as I did in my previous postage stamp yard type neighborhood. And I did like being close and having "community" so to speak. Which is why I am trying to do this I think.

I love the busy-ness of your old neighborhood...but I can see where there would be a kind of instability that would cause it to decline and then gear up again.

Of course not. It sounds like your pro-slow-kid to me.

Hopefully you are very careful about your dealings or...
NO SOUP FOR YOU!

If I remember accurately,
the last time I was there (admittedly, its been a WHILE),
I paid about $35 for some Lobster Bisque.

Maybe its time that I go back there again.





David

In its way, the gearing up can be fierce too, re the historic troubles.

I suppose I was a gentrifier, but I didn't want ramp up, making everything swell, or at least not much. I wanted the place I was in to survive better.

My first friend where I worked as a teen was/is called now a latina. I knew her as her. Anyway, her mother owned property in gang territory, her father a once successful boxer that had what I think of as boxer's alzheimers. They lived a few blocks away, an area which was then held by a major family, or two families. I'm not smart about all this, but not all that live in tough situations are some kind of evil.

I know you get that, Mis.

The Nazi was generous with his Lobster.

$35 for a bowl of soup - I would hope he would be...

Absolutely I get it.

I was going to say that sometimes it seems like neighborhoods draw people that are alike - and I suppose that is true in some respects and untrue in others - just like everything.

One of my boys (baby B -twin) is an odd bird. LOVE that about him. He likes what others don't and doesn't quite walk in the path of those around him. I tell him all the time to revel in what makes him unique. Baby A - love the status quo. Likes being in the popular crowd, makes a point to be what he considers normal. Although he breaks the ceiling on normal as far as I am concerned. He gives advice to his brother all the time. "You shouldn't tell people you collect those - they'll think you are weird". " People are going to think YOU'RE a noob if you keep saying that word"..etc...Much of this is just typical sibling ribbing. But I think for Baby A it goes a little deeper. I could be wrong - but I always worry that he is more concerned about being accepted than enjoying what he does. He excels at everything he puts his hand to. But seems to be bound by opinions so many times. I want better than that for him. I want better than that for me!

I told him time and time again that if you can't be and say and do what you love in front of the people you hang with, you need to change the people you hang with. Being free to be who you are makes life a wonderful place for others...I think people who enjoy being, and doing and saying what they love without concern make life an amazingly interesting place. Okay - yeah...some of them piss me off occasionally - but I get over it fast.

Anyway - all of that to say...Sounds like regardless of where you live, there are amazing people to enjoy. Celebrating the differences is a great way to live life in my opinion.

Agree.