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July 12, 2008
thank you for allowing us to be ourselves
Last night we went down to the blues festival by the river and saw Richie Havens give an incredible performance with just himself on guitar, another guy on guitar (both acoustic) and a woman on cello. The night before we saw Taj Mahal, who had so much more energy and power on stage than the last time we saw him (about six years ago, across the river at Chene Park) that I went away convinced that he'd grown a foot taller since we saw him last. This was our first time attending the Windsor Bluesfest, however, and it's unlikely that we'll go back again. I'm sure this will come off sounding totally snobbish but we really just didn't dig the crowd; putting aside the total crime on the eyes of pairing golf shirts with straw cowboy hats, they just wouldn't shut the hell up while performers were on stage and, you know, I thought a blues festival crowd would be more about hearing the music and less about socializing loudly with people who are probably their coworkers that they talk to every single day. So. We'll be waiting for our chance to see Richie Havens again in some other venue where people aren't yapping in our ears.
In little old lady who spies on the neighbours* news, the next-door neighbours (the ones with the two adorable little girls who just happen to be related to a certain famous-for-being-adorable person to whom little girls are often compared) filled me in this morning on some neighbourhood drama. The nice quiet elderly couple across from us are selling their house, and apparently it's because they can no longer stand living next to two divey rental houses full of assholes. It's been a mess of people calling CAS and the police on other people out of spite and people getting up in other people's faces on their doorsteps and hooboy am I thrilled to have those jackasses tainting all of my precious front porch time now that I know that if you look at them wrong they'll invent some reason to complain to the police about you. Nobody stays in either of those houses more than five months anyway so they'll likely be gone soon, but still. Again, I feel like I come off as a classist bitch for complaining because I was a penniless renter for more than a decade and now that we're homeowners we resent having those two rental houses within our porchsitting line of sight, but really. All I want is neighbours who aren't jerks.
In knitting news, I had to unravel the Noro sock and start again after finally admitting to myself that it was going to be too tight (okay, after putting it on waste yarn again and not being able to get it on my leg). I'd done this last Saturday as well and my friends tried to convince me it was too tight. I of course said that the firmness of the sock would help it stay up and that as long as there wasn't a giant pooch of knee fat folding over the top then the sock must be perfect. I quickly made and washed and measured a swatch and then soldiered on in my foolish endeavour.
My friends, being the best kind of friends, could see I was still in denial and didn't push me but instead sat back in silence in order to allow me to progress at my own pace to the learning-from-my-own-stupid-mistakes stage of sock knitting.
And so here's my sock now, a couple of inches shorter (and about an inch wider) than it was when we last saw it in a Michigan highway rest stop:
My knee fat is breathing a sigh of relief just looking at it.
*by this, of course, I mean me.
Posted by jodi at July 12, 2008 10:34 AM | categories: sticks and string : windsor
Comments
Dude no way. You're not at all a classist bitch for wanting to protect your investment, and live in a pretty okay place. I'm a homeowner in an area where there are tons of transients, in all colors and shapes, and classes, and I still hold my breath when an ajoining home goes up for rent, this home is my investment, and I'll firmly protect and defend it.
Posted by: Julia at July 12, 2008 01:44 PM
I complained enough last summer when the crazy people were renting the house next door... I really get what you're saying. I felt mean when I complained about them, because they deserved a place to live too, but they were driving us nuts.
There is a nice family renting next door now. Both artistic types (theatre director and photographer). Phewf.
Posted by: Steph VW at July 13, 2008 07:26 AM
Your sock is gorgeous! Hopefully those people will move soon and some non-assholes will rent those houses. Crappy neighbors suck!
Posted by: Norah Willett at July 13, 2008 12:47 PM
I hate those neighbours. we have some across the street. Except they managed to convince whatever govt agency (I assume welfare) that it was cheaper to give them the money for their mortgage instead of rent somewhere else. That's right, trash is getting their house paid for by you and me. And I don't even own MY hosue. I rent. And I've been her for 11 years. I've had the cops called on me twice. Once for an argument hubby and I were having. Really, it wasn't that loud. And the second time to tell us to get our nonexistant dog to stop barking!
Posted by: Carol at July 14, 2008 09:35 AM
I am totally with you on the music festival audience thing . . . B and I recently went to a "free" show at a "Taste of the City" festival, and the audience was awful! They were much more concerned with texting each other on their cell phones and chitchatting than seeing the band, and the two guys in front of us spent the whole evening leering at the girl on the next blanket who had the audacity to *dance*. Also, the samesaid two guys heckled the opening band/musician, who was actually very good. I wanted to smack them over and over.
Posted by: chris at July 14, 2008 09:47 AM
Hey, I was down there Friday night too... I would have to agree with you, Havens was great, the crowd, uhh... not so much. For some reason Bluesfest attracts a strange mix of people...
As for the rental issue, Windsor has the higest vacancy rates in Canada. The fact of low interst rates means that most "normal" people who could buy a house have, leaving the less desirable people as renters.
We live next to a big old 1920's era appartment building. When we moved in the building was quiet, and was filled with mostly new immigrant families from eastern europe. They were polite, respectful of the neighbourhood, and their children went to the school down the street. Since then, most have left (moving out west) and leaving a new wave of tennants that leave something to desire.
Good luck with the nearby rental, I don't know that things will get any better in the next little while.
Posted by: Andrew at July 14, 2008 09:59 AM