Moving on up, and venting on the way

Today was our lease-signing at our new place.


We're finally moving out of our hellish Long Beach environs. The condo building in which we live (for the next 7 days) is populated (with few exceptions) with imbecilic, embittered old drabs whose condescending disdain for those foolish enough to rent one of these overpriced two-bedroom apartments in this ghetto-teetering-on-being-a-slum would be amusing if it weren't such a pain in the ass.

Recently we received a shamefully portentously worded warning from the mouthpiece of the Homeowners Association regarding the "many complaints" they have received regarding loud and disturbing noise supposedly emanating from our apartment.

Never mind that neither neighbor on either side has any complaint. At the meetings of the Homeowners Association (I have been reliably informed) only three parties complain: one is a red-headed brute of a woman who lives above us. Her thunderous hoofbeats reverberate through our ceiling in such a way as to suggest she is enjoying the carnal knowledge of a water buffalo, at such volume as to awaken Jack from his sleep more than once.

The second complainant is a hairy-chinned, Gorgon-like crone who lives opposite us. This Gollumesque creature I have been forced to contemplate in various states of undress as she waters her small forest of ficus trees with a zeal bordering on the obsessive and insane. With a cheerful lack of both modesty and concern for the scalded eyes of those who must behold her, she routinely runs about with her hose in a scanty t-shirt or some other horrifyingly inadequate garment leaving far too little to one's imagination.

She also has an extremely troubling habit which she often indulges outside my window as I prepare my morning coffee. Clad only in a bath towel which barely conceals her hideous flanks, she holds a mirror aloft and plucks hairs from her chin with a tweezer -- a practice which takes some time, for so liberally blessed is she with the offending bristles that her chin resembles a small porcupine.

It's almost enough to make one quit drinking coffee.

She is also one of these obsessive cat-rescuing idiots, always retrieiving some flea-bitten feline, sometimes several of them, and carting them into the property, a practice which I blame for our sudden and indescribably horrible flea infestation earlier this year.

Finally, she has a habit of falling asleep at night with her TV on REALLY REALLY LOUD, usually on some old Columbo rerun, and this too has awoken my son on more than one occasion.

The third party is a hunchbacked old troll of what was once a woman, with festering sores on her arms (She is courteous enough to those with a taste for medical curiosities to routinely wear tank tops and other revealing garments, that one might fully appreciate her nascent leprosy.)

This gravel-voiced, Rumplestiltskinesque harridan approached me some weeks ago regarding piles of dog poop which regularly appeared on the grass outside my window. In leading tones, she mentioned these unpleasant reminders of someone else's irresponsibility for his pet, and suddenly I realized that she was in some way insinuating that MY dog was responsible because the poop appeared outside my window. It is hard to imagine a mind so simultaneously paranoid and mind-bogglingly stupid as one that could imagine the following: I have trained and/or I force my dog to sh*t on the property's lawn to spite these bastards in some way, and I have chosen the grass directly beneath my bedroom window to do this, so I can enjoy the smell and revel in my own sinister plan. I mean to say, what?

I claimed ignorance to the whole thing. Never mind that my dog weighs twenty pounds or so and the leavings of this mystery creature seemed, to my untrained eye, to weigh more than he does. Never mind that this seems not to be the work of my small beagle mix but the spoor of some much larger creature -- perhaps a water buffalo, stealthily departing his tryst upstairs.

Never mind that every morning around 7 AM an enormous white dog, with a collar -- clearly loosed by some lazy shiftless bastard in the neighborhood each day in lieu of a proper walk -- runs willy-nilly up and down the street, crapping with abandon.

Oh no! Surely this is part of my cunning plan to disrupt life here at Chestnut Court.

And the loud and disruptive noises? Apparently the sound of little Jack laughing and howling and generally being happy little Jack. That's right. A happy little two-year old boy.

No doubt his carefree laughter and joie de vivre serve as a reminder to these people of how empty and hollow their lives have become, and how little they will be grieved for when they are dead, a time, with any luck, which is in the not-too-distant future.

Anyway. This is the kind of witless a**h*le we have had to deal with around here for over two years. What makes it laughable is the a) the general low-life white trash quality of these people who are looking down on us! and b) the fact that the condos they paid too much for and now can't sell at bargain prices are located in a fetid ghetto in Long Beach. But the condo at least offers among its amenities not just proximity to crack dens and shameless and wanton drug abusers, revolting evidence of prostitution and worse in the parking lot, but no less than 60 convicted child molesters and serial rapists within one mile. Four in one building around the corner alone, for convenient one-stop molestation! More than 600 in the Long Beach area at large! Don't believe me? Try typing in zip code 90813 into this database.

So it is without even crocodile tears that we depart Long Beach in general and Chestnut Court in particular. I am reminded of a line by Rowan Atkinson: "As for the rest of you, you are the worst herd of steaming social animals it has ever been my pleasure to turn my nose up to. I spurn you as I would spurn a rabid dog."

Needless to say we are delighted to be moving to a nice, quiet little town right near Pasadena, called Monrovia. It's really like an anomaly here in Southern California. It has a small-town feel that more than one person has compared to Mayberry RFD. Lots of charm, loads of cool Craftsmans, Victorians and other historic buildings. A great find in SoCal, an area not known for a sense of community or local character -- and we've been looking hard, for a while. Very family-friendly, nice Main Street, lots of playgrounds. Most importantly, we are renting a house! A nice cute little place in a nice neighborhood with a big backyard for Jack and plenty of room for all our stuff, including a proper work area for Daddy and Mommy. No more sharing Jack's room with Mommy's desk or the living room with Daddy's! No more people living upstairs, downstairs, or on the other side of the wall! Walk to shops and restaurants!

It's a little short on child molesters and rapists (only 20 show up on the database in the whole immediate region) but somehow, we'll get by.

We're moving a lot of stuff over the coming week, and finally getting all our stuff in next weekend with help from Genevieve's sister and her boyfriend who are flying here to help us, bless 'em.

So here are a few pics of the new place. Jack is digging it!


Jack likes the view of the mountains from the front porch . . .



And the handy playground right down the street . . .


But most of all the enormous yard he can explore and play in!



The sharp-eyed will notice Jack is wearing a Bob Dylan concert t-shirt I bought for him at a very fine Dylan show last year. When asked, "Who's that on your shirt, Jack?" he will point to it and intone, "Bob."