The caretaker job ends in two weeks.
Good riddance.
With no school year to mark the time for me anymore, I guess summer ends with the Minnesota State Fair. There’s probably a meteorological date or something, but lamb on a stick is a better way to mark the seasons.
I’m ending summer with a new view of the skyline, but I’m still in Minneapolis.
We signed the lease to our new place today. So of course the dogs and I spent most of our time at Lake of the Isles.
I love summer in Uptown Minneapolis. This is the Uptown theater, where they played Labyrinth.
So it is officially hotter in Minneapolis than it is in Miami. Summer is here, the neighborhood looks lush, and my freshness is compromised.
I am getting ready for Jetset (doing some poses in the mirror to music, really) when I notice a hooded figure walking by my window.
The figure walks by a second time, and then a third time. I assume this fool is casing my garden-level apartment, so I grab the dogs and sashay outside. I walk around the side of the building but no one is there.
I’m the caretaker for my building. Part of the caretaker job is showing open units to the ghetto and the crazy, most of whom don’t show up for their appointments:
Me: “Hello, I’d like to speak to KeKe.
Old Lady: “What? Why? Who?”
Me: “KeKe. We had an appointment for an apartment showing at 1pm. It’s 1:15 now…”
Old Lady: “Oh, THE GIRL! Lemme find her…”
KeKe: “Yea?”
Me: “Hi Keke. This is Dennis from the Whittier Apartment building.”
KeKe: “Okay.”
Me: “…uh, well, we had a showing scheduled today for 1pm. It’s 1:15 now. Do you need directions?”
KeKe: “Oh I couldn’t find it.”
The junkies living underneath me were evicted yesterday. The management company secretary said that booting the junkies out was a nightmare, and the building owner called and to apologize for ever renting to them.
The junkies made this semester rough. They screamed at all hours of the night, blocked and trashed the hallways, broke windows, and even fired a gun.
It is spring in Minneapolis…
It is 41 degrees outside (“feels like 34”) and raining, so of course the dog wakes me up:
Harley: “Time to go poopy!”
Me (looking outside): “Bitch please. Go back to sleep.”
Harley: “Poopy! Can’t wait. Noooow please.”
Me: “Fine, fine…5 more minutes…”
Harley: “The pudding can’t wait!”
Harley jumps off my bed and scampers off.
I’m putting my jeans on to take the dog out when a hear a toot from the living room.
Harley trots out of his kennel by the time I get there. There’s a big-steamy-pile of surprise in the kennel. Harley wags his tail until I start with the hysterics:
Me: “GOD DAMMIT! THIS IS UNFAIR! I WAS GETTING READY!”
Harley: “Unfair? Equity isn’t for those who sleep on their rights beyotch! Poopy couldn’t wait.”
I clean up the bullshit surprise and then put Harley’s leash on. He gives me a look like, “What’s that for? I’ve already relieved myself.”
Me: “I am not going to be the only one going outside in this plague weather!”
Harley: “But it’s coooold and wet!”
Me: “MY POINT EXACTLY!”
Five minutes later we are on the corner of the block and I’m trying to explain to Harley how he cannot both wake me up at an ungodly hour AND sass me for the crappy weather. My glares/mental rant are interrupted when I see Mel on the corner of the street.
I haven’t seen Mel since this summer. But tonight she was working the street – without an umbrella – standing on the corner looking wet and miserable.
Prostitutes on my block were everywhere this summer, but most of them had enough sense to take their work inside once the weather started to turn. But not Mel! Rain or shine, Mel is always in business. She’s on that USPS level.
I give Mel a look like “it’s time to invest in an umbrella or reconsider your career choices.”
She glares.
The dog snorts at her and we walk off.
So, it’s midnight. That means it’s officially Wednesday – aka, the day my neighborhood loses its damn mind.
I hear a car running outside. When I look out of my window, I see two police cruisers in the street and an unmarked cop car on the side of the building.
I went to Wal-Mart1 after work, so I left my backpack in the car to bring my Wal-Mart bags upstairs. I left my backpack, with my school laptop in it, was in the front passenger seat of the car.
After tossing the bags in the apartment and chucking the milk in the fridge, I got the dog for the evening walk. I left my backpack in my car because the car was going to be within eyesight during the walk.2
Harley and I were about a block away when two teenage girls passed us. The girls reeked of pot and shot me the stank eye.
I only notice the chaos because I have Wills & Trusts at 8:30am the next day, which means that I should probably go to bed early – but I can’t – because on Wednesday nights the entire neighborhood gathers for a chorus of crazy.
Last night’s crazy started with two guys trying to jump a car at the end of the street. The car doing the jumping had a car alarm which went off every time the guy revved his engine.
This went on for 25 minutes.
I left work late, so the only street parking was a few blocks away.
When I got out of my car I noticed someone peering from the dirty white car across the street – it was Terry, the toothless man who sleeps in his car.
I nodded politely but Terry just kept giving me this blank-yet-rabid-stare. I could sense his eyes following me as I walked down the block…ugh.
After getting home and walking the dog, I realize that I left my laptop in my car. I decide that it is more prudent to fetch the computer than to explain to the cops why I left a laptop in a car parked next to a crazed semi-homeless man.
