Jefke.com

So yesterday,

(sidebar, ever notice how i start every post with ‘so’? i think this is a habit i picked up from my former boss, colby who owned the deli i worked at in college, he’s always start stories with a ‘so’, just sorta stuck. i like it, it makes it seem like it’s all on long stream of consciousness)

I took the day off to watch the captain, natty’s schedule is all whacky crazy, so we are having trouble lining up sitters when we need them (any body know of a nanny looking for 25-30 hrs a week?) and i didn’t really try that hard to line one up for yesterday-i knew i wouldn’t be in new york and frankly i wanted a day off.

things started off on a bad foot. normally, the capt will wake up when natty is downstairs getting ready to leave, and i can trick him in to going back to sleep for a while. yesterday he woke up early and discovered that she was still around. she then he wanted to see her, etc. after she left, i couldn’t get him back to sleep. so that added a extra 2 hrs to the day.

i made pancakes to kill some time, which went pretty well, i guess. then we went outside to play on the patio. i notice that there was a skid loader on a trailer across the street and stupidly called it to the capt’s attention. so the next 6 hrs were spent with him saying “yealoder! yealllowder!” and us watching 2 hicks tear up the lady across the street’s yard and sidewalk. every time i’d almost get him to sleep he’d sit up and point to the window and yell “yealoder!” the kid loves construction equipment. what can i say.

eventually i took him for a walk and he passed out. then woke up, and then we went for another longer walk to the playground.

let me do some context setting.

as i’ve said 1093 times in teh last 3.6 years, we live in a neighborhood that is in transition, yuppie scum like oursleves are moving in and either replacing long time hardcore “working class” (read WT) residents that have either died off, or are selling out and moving to, eh, somewhere, god only knows where.

now some of said residents have hung on and refuse to leave-that’s cool, live and let live, i always say. ok i never say that, but whatever they were here first, just dont’ throw your convinence store fried chicken boxes and cheetos bags in my yard. and for fucksake stop yelling all the time.

where was i? ah right, so our little nook boarders on some fancier, pricier neighborhoods, one of them boarders a park-and there is a little playground there, which we frequent. there are closer playgrounds, but they’re err, not as nice, yeah that’s how i’ll put it. ok i’ll just say it, i’m a full blown fucking classist.

but back on track, as we approached the playground yesterday there was a pack of wild kids, all screaming and running and stuff. ok, no biggie, it’s a playground that’s to be expected. There were 2 ‘mothers’ sort fo overseeing the chaos. it’s funny how stereotypes are really generalizations of reality. these ladies were dead on walking representations of our area. maybe it was the extra large yuengling tshirt (i love you yuengling you know that) that was skin tight, maybe it was the gradient tint sunglasses, maybe the 100′s style cigarettes-but i’m sure it was mostly the yelling, the goddamned fucking screaming at the kids, in bawlmerese, that just drove me crazy.

their ‘management technique was to set up in the middle of the playground and gossip whilst the kids ran in all manners of directions, then every 15 mins or so, scan the horizion and unleash a hollar at what ever kid had wandered too far off, or was choking another kid , or hanging off the side of the slide. , then to continue their conversation,

at certain points, a woman across the fuckign street would stand up on her porch and yell at the kids too, i dunno if she was related or was strategic back up or what, but she’d chime in with a yell here and there.

what’s fucking upsetting to me, is the capt started yelling, imitating them, just like that. took 10 seconds. i actually think he may never really heard yelling like this, up until yesterday. and next thing you know he’s doing it. on one level his mimicking of them was sorta funny. but man, it was totally depressing.  i mean–then the kids yell at eachother, and yell, yell yell, everyone yell,

why is the volume at which people communicate inversely proportionate to their income? this i look to the skies and ask the gods in vain

some good highlights from the ‘ladies’ conversation:

• oh you look good–your ass it right there, the belly’s getting smaller
• my lease says 800, i dont’ know what he pays on top of that fer the mortgage, but fuck’em
• i’ve never seen her body, just her head-i guess i can see why he’d fuck her
• i’m just looking for a reason to rip her fuckign head off, i’d do it for your sake, for mine, and just to do it
• of course i kept his number, everybody needs a side dish–i mean you can’t have chicken with out biscuits–can you?

good shit.

so here’s the twist–

jefke 2007′s glass half full take:

so all the kids running totally wild and pretty much unsupervised: the capt was in awe, and in oddly enough, in one swoop he started climing the stairs the to big kid slides and going down by him self. i think it was the completely snot covered 18 month old little girl that sort of embarassed him in to doing it–so i guess having parents that don’t really watch you make you more apt to be independent. so maybe by actually watching my son–i’m holding him back?